


some questions you might ask

by iphigenias



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Episode: s01e06 Bastogne, M/M, acts of service are Dick's love language pass it on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27037459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: “Dick.” Nix said his name like that: italicised. Soft and emphatic.
Relationships: Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Comments: 14
Kudos: 77





	some questions you might ask

**Author's Note:**

> i've been reading a lot of winnix lately and wrote this short little ditty today after more than four years out of the winnix saddle, so all mistakes are my own. as always, based on the hbo portrayals of easy company and not the real men.

Is the soul solid, like iron?  
Or is it tender and breakable, like  
the wings of a moth in the beak of an owl?  
Who has it, and who doesn't?  
I keep looking around me. 

— Mary Oliver, 'Some Questions You Might Ask'

Winter in the Bois Jacques and Dick’s never seen snow this white. It hangs in the pine boughs like a vaulted cathedral ceiling, just as ethereal, just as forbidding. Snow in Lancaster would blanket the fields for miles but there was always a warmth to it, even in January. Maybe because that was home and Belgium is as far from it as Dick can imagine but, still. It feels sacrilegious, to be kneeling in his foxhole beneath this holy white cloak, Nix’s hands like twin vices around his neck, around his waist, mouth pressed against and into Dick’s like a communion Dick has never taken but knows how it feels all the same.

The shelling stopped at 19:00 and the cries for medic a little beyond that. Dick could only picture Roe flitting between the foxholes like some sort of will-o’-the-wisp, pausing briefly, here, to bandage a clean shrapnel wound; there, to dig out broken bark from a gash lucky to have missed the artery. No deaths today, as far as Dick knew. But still plenty of time for that.

Nix flopped into the foxhole 19:30. There was a shake to his hands from the cold and something else. “Had to spend the bloody barrage with Dike,” he’d said, shoving those shaking hands inside his coat, out of Dick’s sight. “Last time I take a walk down the line.”

“Sure, Lew,” Dick replied.

“Don’t _sure Lew_ me.” Nix took his hands back out and rubbed them together; God knows where his gloves had gone off to. He blew on them, air frosting in front of his mouth. Dick sighed, and took his gloves off.

“I’m warmer than you,” he’d pointed out, and Dick’s known a lot of men above charity but Nix isn’t one of them.

“Think I left mine with Dike,” said Nix, peeling them on careful, then, belatedly: “Thanks.”

Dick shrugged. It wasn’t something he needed to hear; not from Nix, anyway, who’d taken one look at Dick that first day in Georgia, grinned and bumped his shoulder, said “so this is how they make them in Podunk county” and laughed and laughed when Dick told him he was from Lancaster, actually.

“Left my bloody drink with him too,” Nix said, patting his pockets, sounding more put out by the missing whiskey than the gloves. “Don’t suppose you have some of that tucked away too?” He’d peered at Dick, only half-joking, and Dick laughed as loudly as noise discipline allowed.

“Not unless you tucked it on me, no,” he said, and Nix rocked back against the wall with a sigh.

“Remind me to start doing that.”

Dick rolled his eyes in the dark. “Sure, Lew.”

Firing started up down the line; D company, maybe. He’d have to find Speirs tomorrow. Nix sighed again. “Berlin by Christmas, huh,” he’d said, the _huh_ more an exhale than a word. Dick smiled.

“It’s not for another week, Lew.” The firing puttered off, as quickly as it had started. “You never know.”

“Except that it’s my job to know,” Nix said. “And I do know.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Optimist.”

“Pessimist.”

“ _Pennsylvanian_.”

Dick had laughed, again; Nix seemed to be the only person to bring it out of him, these days. “Hit me where it hurts, why don’t you.”

Nix shifted in the dark. “You know I’m joking.”

“It’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference.”

“ _Dick_.” Nix said his name like that: italicised. Soft and emphatic. Dick met his eyes as best he could in the darkness. “I’m joking.”

“I know, Lew.”

Nix shifted closer. “I’d never hurt you.”

“I _know_ , Lew.” Dick looked up at the stars and back down again. “You sure you left the Vat with Dike?”

There was a frustrated sound, then something soft and cool pressed into Dick’s hand. His glove. “Just one?”

“My hands are fucking frozen, Dick.”

Dick put the glove on. A brief brush against his ungloved hand, then, and icy fingers twisted through his. “All right, Lew,” Dick found himself saying, pulse jamming like a quickstep. December clung around them like a ghost.

“Christ, you’re cold,” Nix said.

“I gave you my gloves.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“You were cold.”

“Would it kill you to look after yourself once in a while?” Dick had nothing to say to that. He squeezed Nix’s hand, instead. “Yeah, yeah,” Nix continued, softer, now. “Good thing I’ve got time on my hands, then.”

“Hm,” Dick said, and tugged Nix closer. He came easily, boneless, almost. Dick could smell the whiskey and the smoke on him.

“Christ,” Nix said again, and fell into Dick like an exhale. His lips were warmer than his hands and Dick kissed along the seam of them, the bow.

Later, close to 20:00, Dick leans back against the foxhole wall and smiles. He palms Nix’s cheek. “You need a shave,” he says, and Nix shrugs, laughs.

“Only if you do it for me,” he replies, and Dick pinches his cheek in retaliation. Nix jerks back in shock. “You’re a _menace_ ,” he scowls, rubbing his cheek, and Dick laughs soundlessly into his scarf. “I’ve half a mind to spend the night with Dike.”

Dick knows the empty threat for what it is, and tugs Nix closer instead. He resists, this time, for just a moment, but Dick tugs again and Nix follows, like he has since Georgia. Dick presses a kiss to the side of Nix’s head, into his hairline, smells the sweat and smoke clinging close to his scalp and thinks, strangely, that he has never been happier. “Sure, Lew,” he whispers into the kiss, and Nix grumbles but says nothing, and Dick watches that holy white spread above them and prays they will make it to spring.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twitter @svnsvstvrk


End file.
